People love bad news. Why don't they love environmental news?

Amongst the many gems from Peep show come these lines

Jez: There's only so much happiness in the world and they're hoarding it all!

Mark: That's not how happiness works! (sotto voce ~ It completely is.)

Even the most optimistic amongst us think like this at times. And if things are going too well for too long it must mean that someone somewhere is pushing a piano to the top of a cliff and waiting to shove it onto your head.

Reading newspaper comments on the impending cuts I wonder if this is why the populace at large is so willing to placidly accept them. If labour kept saying that they would increase spending it must mean that we'll have to pay it off at some point.

There is a mixture here of the ease with which we can compare our household accounts with those of a nation and our general feeling that if there were good times we are due some bad times. If the bad times don't come then we probably need a spanking of some sort.

It is on one hand a shame that we aren't able to tell that our household accounts have about as much similarity to a nations accounts as a kite does to a F-16 fighter. But more interesting is a broad willingness and perhaps even an eagerness to face hardship when it comes in the right packaging.

I wonder how this could be harnessed to encourage people to stop buying quite so much crap!

screw it I'm drinking

There's no point. It really is all fucked. sometimes you think maybe if we're clever enough we can change things and then you see Republicans screaming blue murder because some people are trying to provide some health care for disadvantaged people. If there are significant numbers who aren't even willing to go that far for the common good we're all fucked and there are too many people like that and even I don't do nearly enough and I actually care.

Just accept that changing enough people's minds to make any real difference is essentially impossible. All the concessions gained so far will be worthless when the oil starts to run out. Then famine, war, pestilence. Billions dead.

Many many decades of horror. Most of the books and information will last I hope. Then the smaller remaining human population will be trapped in some spots across the globe. I think things might start to get better then.

But for now. Right now. May as well have fun and wait. Hopefully I'll be about 60 when it gets really bad. Not dead but plenty of time to enjoy myself.

Does that sound adolescent and petulant? I'm not sure. I'm not sure I can paint a different picture that I can actually believe.